A Doctor in Manchester has been secretly filmed offering to terminate a
pregnancy purely because the foetus is female, even though it is illegal to carry
out an abortion for this reason.

In the undercover filming Miss Prabha Sivaraman, a consultant who works for both private clinics and NHS hospitals in Manchester, told a pregnant woman who said she wanted to abort a female foetus, "I don''t ask questions. If you want a termination, you want a termination".

She later telephoned a colleague to book the procedure, explaining that it was for “social reasons” and the woman “doesn’t want questions asked”.

She said to her colleague: “This [the termination] will be under private, she doesn’t want to go through NHS. Okay, so - that’s right, because you’re part of our team and she doesn’t want questions asked”.

Miss Sivaraman, who works for the Pall Mall Medical Centre in Manchester and also as a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at North Manchester General Hospital, said that the cost of the termination would be £200 or £300, on top of the £500 already paid to the clinic for the consultation with her.

After taking the woman’s contact details, Dr Sivaraman asked her if she had considered her options. “Oh, absolutely… I can’t have it, this baby, because of the gender, so that’s just how it is…” replied the woman.